History of The
Town of Barneswritten
by: Virginia M. Wilkinson, in 1976

In
the year 1888, George S. Barnes came to this
area with his wife Martha, and daughter Euseba. After
looking the surrounding country over, he decided to
settle on Island Lake and build a small home. The country
at that time, was largely an unsettled wilderness,
heavily forested and inhibited mainly by Indian families,
a few hardy woodsmen and abundant wildlife.

Their nearest neighbors were two Chippewa Indian
families, John and Eliza Morrison and the Bosquets, Mrs.
Bosquet being a sister of Mrs. Morrison. They were all
very helpful people to the Barnes family, who had made up
their mind to make this area their permanent home. This
same Island Lake is now known as Potowatomi Estates.

Also, Dr. and Mrs. William Gray had a summer home on
the Island. Dr. Gray's grandson, William Percell, spent
his childhood summers with his grandparents there. In his
later life, he wrote a book, "The St. Croix
Trail Country", telling of his young life spent
at Island Lake and of his the people who became his
friends.

Mrs. Nettie McCormick, widow of Cyrus
McCormick, the
inventor of the Harvester, visited Dr.
Gray and his family in 1887. Her late husband was a
business partner of Dr. Gray in Chicago, and she came
here for the first time to see the property which she and
Dr. Gray had purchased. They secured legal possession of
Island and surrounding forest in Bayfield County,
Wisconsin.

In
1905, George Barnes sold a team of colts and used the
money to go to Madison, Wisconsin to appear before a
Legislative Committee, to create the Town of Barnes, which was
then part of the Town of Cable and Drummond.
By this time, he was farming on quite a large scale and also
logging. He hired men to help him. He had moved and
built a larger home for his family, about five miles south of
Island, as now there were six children.

In January of the same year, 1905, a terrible tragedy struck
the Barnes family. Mrs. Barnes, the two younger children
and a school teacher lost their lives when their home burned. Mr.
Barnes and the men from his logging camp fought
frantically to save them. The older children, seeing they could
be of no help either, ran to safety.

Later on, Mr. Barnes married May Machon from Iron River, Wis.
They had two children, Mrs. Ben Norton (Ruby),
now deceased, and Stanley Barnes, who has lived his entire life
in the town founded by his father. Stanley is in the real estate
and accounting business on Highway 27.

About 1909,
the town had a post-office, Mr. Barnes being the
Postmaster. In those days, the mail came from Iron River, Wis.
Horace Barnes was the carrier and would go to Iron River three
times a week to bring the mail to the Barnes office. This was
done by driving a team of horses.

By this time, under the same roof was a saloon, grocery store
and large living quarters. The Indians would come to the store to
buy their groceries.

Home of George S. Barnes, Also store and post office in
same buildingphoto taken about 1915(Click on
photo for individual viewing)

Some could speak nothing but their native
Chippewa language. This was no problem to Mr. Barnes, as he
could understand when they would want sugar, flour, salt pork,
etc.

We had many Chippewa Indians living in our area
and they were very friendly people. There were two Indian
villages
on the shores of the Eau Claire Lakes, also an Indian Cemetery
was near the Village on the Middle Lake.
Margaret Buck Holmes, better known as Maggie, worked for the
Barnes family and was a favorite to all.
Her husband was Henry Holmes. They had a daughter, Mary Ann (Mrs.
Amos Barker) who is living in Minong, Wis.

Bony
Lake derived it's name from a famous chief, Bony
Lombard. He had a son Pete,
who was very young when his father died, and being that his
mother was also dead,
he was cared for by an Indian family, and also attended our
country school.
Many of us remember Pete Lombard, as he didn't leave here until
he was about 18 years old.
However, no one from here ever heard from him since.

We have many lakes in our area, the famous Eau Claire Chain is
made up of three large lakes, the Upper Eau Claire,
the Middle Eau Claire, the Lower Eau Claire, and many smaller lakes.
This chain is the headwaters of the Eau Claire River, which
connects with the St. Croix River, which then in turn
empties into the Mississippi River. These lakes make what is
known as the famous Eau Claire Lakes resort area.
Among the pioneer resorts are the Pease Resort, Point O'Pines
(formerly Earharts), Rustic Lodge
(now known as the Frontier Resort), Ellison Resort, Boulder
Lodge, Lake View Resort and Lyndale Bay
Resort.

Every
year since 1938, there has been an increasing number of resortsbuilt. There
are well stocked grocery stores, many fine eating places, a Real
Estate business, Peggy's Beauty Salon, Jim's Bait
Shop, two garages, Friermood Bros. and AJ's
Riverside, and a carpet company, complete with installation.
There are others which I may have forgotten to mention, but our
natives and tourists have most everything needed.

Forest fires were a great menace in the early
days, not having the means to stop them before they got out of
control. Every available man would fight day and night to try to
save homes, forests and wildlife. Many families lost their homes
in the forest fire of 1936. This was in our neighboring town of
Highland.

One family, the Newell Irles, then moved to
Milwaukee, Wis. After being gone about 30 years, they moved back
and are now retired in the Town of Barnes. People do not have to
live in fear of these fires now, due to having fire towers, the
fire departments, ranger stations and modern equipment.

Among some of the older families
coming to the Town of Barnes to settle were:The Barnes family in 1888, Mr. Barnes
was the first town chairman, a post he held for many years, D.O.
Hall in 1904, B.F. Ellison in 1906, L.D. Pease came from Cable,
Wis. in 1915 and started his resort in 1916.

John Kennedy came here about the
year 1910 from Black River Falls, Wis. He helped Mr. Barnes in
his logging operations and also was Town Clerk for many years.
Later on he married Euseba, daughter of George Barnes. Others
were Frank Moores, Ben Roes, John Dicks, Ole Ulvin, who all
raised large families and made their living from farming and
working in logging camps.

Alfred Kaufman and his father came
here from Oregon in 1923, Alfred attended school here and helped
his father on their large farm. The Fred Kaufmans and Adolph
Kaufman arrived here in 1932. Fred and Adolph were brothers and
farmed on a big scale, and also were in the dairy business. There
were other families who lived here for awhile and then moved on,
perhaps to seek a better living

.The first school in the town was what we
called the "Little Red
school" and was located across from where Roy Norton now
lives. Later on we had seven country schools, namely:
the new Barnes School, which was built in
the early 1920's, Pease, McNeil, Lake,
Hall, Moore
and Ulvin schools. The
first through 8th grades were all taught. One by one, these
schools were discontinued and in December of 1947, the Barnes
school was destroyed by fire. School busses were then started,
coming out from Drummond to pick up the grade school students and
those who wanted to attend high school. Many more children then
had an opportunity to get a high school education. We now have
two busses from Drummond and our children are attending the
Grandview, Cable and Drummond schools.

Other post offices in our earlier times were
located at the Frank Moore place and was
named Bingo, Wis.., although
this was in the Town of Barnes. The mail came from Iron River,
Wis. by a carrier three times a week, and the postmaster was August
Ellerman.

The other post office was Fresh
Air, Wis.. located down by the Middle Eau Claire
Lake, the postmaster was a lady by the name of Mrs. Beatrice
Howard, who came here from Chicago for health reasons,
therefore, she called it Fresh Air. She was granted authority to
form a post office in her home. This was in 1928 and the mail
came out from the Gordon, Wis. office. Roy E. Lawler was the
postmaster at Gordon. Grover Smith, the rural mail carrier,
brought the mail as far as the Hughes Corner, now known as
Draganowskis. Kenneth Ellison would meet Grover and bring the
mail on to Fresh Air, Wis. Mrs. Howard lived out her life at
Fresh Air and is buried at Gordon, Wis.

When the Barnes post office
was abandoned, we started getting our mail on a star route from
Solon Springs, at first only three times a week, then in the late
1940's it was changed to a daily route.

We have two vehicles in town that are very
important to our community, they are the ambulanceand volunteer fire
department. The ambulance has modern equipment and
capable people driving and taking care of the sick or injured on
the way to the hospitals.
The fire department has saved homes and many fires from spreading
when called.
It seems like only a matter of minutes until they are both there.
We are proud to have these services for our town.

One of our large undertakings, was the organizing
of the V.F.W. Post. The first meeting was held
at Stan Barnes' Tavern to decide if a Post
was wanted. Then, on Sept. 10, 1946,
a meeting was held at the Town Hall, being called to order by Al
Hunter of Marshfield, Wis. (Al had been a V.F.W. member for
years).
Members were registered and we had the Barnes Post 8329
now organized. IN October, 1946, it was voted to have a Ladies Auxiliary.
In this year we started our first community work.

April 8, 1947, the Post voted to buy land for
their own Club House. They bought forty acres of land on the Lake
Rd. for $100.00 from the county.

They also bought a school to be moved. The first
joint memorial service was held at the Town Hall and cemetery in
1951 in memory of William Denver, a World War I Veteran.

Our Post was honored in having the 10th District
Fall Encampment here on Sept. 24 and 25th, 1954. The business
places had floats and we had a big parade, starting from the Town
Hall and ending at the Club House. In a V.F.W. magazine, it was
called a "Parade in the woods". The Post now has a
beautiful, all modern building.

The Barnes Lions Club,
organized April 21, 1975, has had a very successful year. The
Charter night was sponsored by the Cable Lions Club and Lion
members from other towns were also there. This was held at the
Frontier Supper Club, with a delicious dinner being served. The
ladies were also guests for the evening.

We also have two very active Homemaker Clubs,
the Jackpine Club and the Barnes Club. They have done many good
deeds during the years, some being the buying of equipment for
the kitchen at the Town Hall.

All roads in the area are in excellent condition.
The main State Highway 27 goes through our region, and also two
county trunk roads. The many town roads are kept in very good
condition, summer and winter. With the modern equipment and our
excellent road crew,
every one is snow-plowed out as soon as possible,
even during the blizzards which we have quite often during the
winters.

In later years, many newbusinessplaces have started, people have come here to make their
permanent homes, and some of those who spent their childhood days
here have come back to their home town to retire.

Those of us who live here have always
loved and respected our Town of Barnes.